I had a crappy weekend. Scratch that.

I had a great weekend till I fell asleep watching SBTRKT’s Coachella performance Saturday evening. It was amazing but I was drunk and tired, so I fell asleep. After that it all went downhill…

But then I saw SBTRKT live last night and everything changed. It was ridiculous.

I loved SBTRKT from the very first time I heard ‘Hold On‘. Then I fell in love with the album. The beats, the soulfulness of it all, it just all worked so well. So I was ecstatic when I got tix a few months ago.

SBTRKT & Sampha (who does the vocals on the album) took the stage and from the moment they started till the very end, people were dancing. I have been to a lot of shows in SF and no one really dances much. Not tonight. The energy in that place for a Monday night was crazy.

They sounded better live than than on the album. Better than I anticipated or imagined. Watching SBTRKT, behind his wall of drums, samplers, laptops work and rework the songs and flip beats and add live drumming and sampling was awe inspiring. And Sampha’s soulful singing and tribal drumming just pushed it over the edge while melding everything together at the same time.

So ya. After seeing SBTRKT live everything else just turned around. We’ll just pretend like that bit in between shows never happened.

Check out some of the highlights from the show below.

And join party they did. Everyone was up and dancing like the night before, but this was mid afternoon. In the sun. To deejays spinning their own music. Not guaranteed jams and classics that everyone knows. This was reggae/dancehall/hiphop/funk all mixed together. And man did they get the party started. Just amazing.

All I could think about while watching all those people dance was how people used to bitch that deejays weren’t musicians. That people would never come to a concert to see a deejay spin records. Well tell that to the 30,000+ people who shook their asses for Major Lazer.

I randomly found out about Charles Bradley from a Nirvana cover of all things. But his cover was a slow and soulful cover. I’m talkin old school James/Otis/Marvin kinda soul. So ya I was not gonna miss that.

There were only a handful of other people even near the stage as his set began, but just a song or two in and there was a decent sized crowd checking out the “Screaming Eagle of Soul” sing and dance all over the stage.

Finding new music and seeing them live right away is one of the best things about living in the Bay Area. Even if you have to get up early and bus yr ass over for it.

Everyone up and dancing and singing their hearts out under a full moon after a full day of music and sun in Golden Gate Park. Ya, that was a great ending to a great day.

While DV & I were discussing how sad/stupid it was that The Roots & The Black Keys were playing at the same time, everyone around us was either trying to figure out who The Roots were. Or someone in the group was trying to convince the others that they should stay and check them out. Obviously this was the first Roots show for a lot of the people there. I just couldn’t believe so many people didn’t even know who they were. Boy were they in for a schooling.

They’re one of my all time favorite groups and they never disappoint so I was more than a bit excited to see them do their thing yet again. Their performance that sunny Saturday afternoon was as awesome as could be expected. They easily flowed from classics like “You Got Me” and “Seed 2.0” to new jams like “Fire” and “Now or Never”. They also did some covers like “Sweet Child O Mine” and “Bad to the Bone.” And they even did a tribute to Fela Kuti. It was pretty incredible.

Everyone around us seemed to agree cause as we were leaving the Twin Peaks stage, all I could hear was people saying things like: “OMG that was the best show ever!” “I think I have a new favorite band!” “They were amazing. Why are they on Jimmy Fallon?”

But what I was pretty shocked about was all the people there under 25/30. I don’t understand how anyone that young is listening to Phish nowadays. It just boggled my mind. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed their 3.5 hour set. It took me back to some good times with some good friends. I still enjoyed the songs I knew but wasn’t really into the ones I didn’t know.

I’m pretty glad we saw them but I really don’t think I need to ever really relive my jam band days again.

And man, she did not disappoint. K.Flay deejayed most of her set from a laptop but also had a live drummer on stage. The mix of her rapping over remixed indie music with a backing drummer was pretty great. She had lots of energy. Jumping around stage. And the whole time delivering some pretty great rhymes. Check out the video below to see K.Flay rapping & singing over some XX & Gossip remixes.

I watched a couple songs from the back and then got pretty bored with their set. They had no energy and the songs just sounded kinda blah. It did absolutely nothing for me. I had to leave that stage. But I lost everyone and my phone has no service. Sweet.

So I decided to get some pizza from Spicy Pie and check out Ellie Goulding while I tried to figure out how to meet up with DV again. And man was that a good idea. Not only was the pizza excellent but Ellie Goulding was outstanding. Like MGMT, I only knew a couple of her songs, but everything she did sounded awesome. And the crowd ate it up. Very high energy, very dancey and very very good.

Later on that day I saw this bit of graffiti in the port-o-potty. I guess I wasn’t the only one who didn’t enjoy MGMT’s set. Anyway, hope you enjoy Ellie Goulding’s Starry Eyed as much as I did.

She directed me to the wall she saw. Then we saw some sculptures. And some trucks and more walls. Then some amazing murals. And then we had to go. But I knew what I was doing the next day. Coming right back to West Oakland to find some more street art.

I started again the next day right where I left off on Mandela. And just drove around looking around for any signs of spray paint (Which wasn’t hard to find). It was everywhere. So much street art and so many different styles: Tags, throwies, burners, characters, posters, beautiful old painted murals, wild style walls and new school graffiti. I couldn’t believe how diverse and awesome it all was.

I could have spent another couple hours looking for more, but I decided to save that for another weekend. I’ll be back West Oakland.

 
 
 
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